4.3.25 - The Book Keepers Dilemma pt 5

Parable 5: The Clock That Counted Backward

Father dreamed of broken pencils. He was back in class, late for a test, and all the pencils were shattered in half—each one sharpened on the wrong end. The scantron bled red ink. No one else seemed to notice.

He woke with the taste of copper in his mouth.

Morning came hazy and tight. The baby was already bouncing on Mother’s hip, giggling as she chopped fruit with one hand. The older kids were arguing about cereal, something about marshmallow ratios. Outside, a bird kept striking the window over and over, as if trying to get in or forget how to get out.

Father sat up slowly. His phone buzzed with the day’s obligations: schoolwork, meal prep, more cleaning. Somewhere in the mess of reminders was a notification he didn’t remember setting.

"Final Project Submission Due – 6 Hours Remaining."

Six hours? That couldn’t be right. He’d had a week left yesterday.

He double-checked the timestamp, checked the assignment portal. Same deadline. No extensions. No mercy.

He rubbed his eyes, blinked hard, and sat at the edge of the bed. His leg bounced involuntarily.

Down the hallway, the bathroom light flicked on, then off again. No one had entered. Or at least, he hadn’t seen anyone.

“Did you change the deadline?” he asked, walking into the kitchen, laptop tucked under his arm.

Mother looked up from her cutting board. “What?”

“For the class. My capstone. It says I have six hours to submit.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You told me it was due next week.”

“I know. I— I don’t know what happened.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Did you even start it?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.

“I can take the kids to the park,” she offered. “Buy you a few hours.”

He nodded, grateful but ashamed. “Yeah. Thanks.”

Once they were gone, the silence took shape.

He sat at his desk, opened his project folder. Blank template. No notes. No progress.

Six hours.

The document blinked at him like a dare.

He typed a sentence. Deleted it. Typed another. Deleted that too.

His fingers moved faster than his thoughts, copying old files, splicing templates, pulling citations from classes he barely remembered. The goal was survival, not excellence.

Somewhere in the copy-paste haze, a strange file appeared on his desktop.

"log7_FINALreal_REALthisone.wav"

He didn’t remember downloading it. Didn’t remember creating it.

He clicked play.

A quiet voice—his own—began speaking. Slow. Cautious.

“Test log. Log seven. Confirming timestamp: May 4th, 2023, 2:17 a.m. Subject experiencing audio hallucinations. External voice mimics infant cries. Internal voice… has shifted. Behaves independently in second person.”

Father paused the file.

He checked the date.

That wasn’t today. That was almost a year ago.

He didn’t remember making the recording.

He looked at the playback bar. The file was forty-two minutes long.

He pressed play again.

“—I don’t know if this is the medication or the algorithm. The test logs are rewriting themselves. My dreams don’t match the dreams I’m remembering. I think I’m remembering things I never lived.”

The voice cracked.

“I’m not paranoid. It’s just that the files know too much.”

Click.

He closed the file. Dragged it to the trash. Emptied the bin. Then restarted his computer.

For several seconds, nothing happened. Just a blank black screen. Then, one line appeared in white text:

“Time does not pass. It is passed through.”

The laptop powered on normally after that.

He stared at the login screen, unsure if he had imagined it.

The assignment was still due in four hours.

He opened a clean document and started typing.

By the time Mother returned, the sun had shifted past the blinds. Father was slouched in his chair, eyes dry from staring.

The baby squealed and crawled over. The older kids chattered about ducks and juice boxes.

Mother scanned the room.

“You finish?”

“I submitted something,” he replied. “I don’t know if it was any good.”

“That’s all you ever need to do,” she said softly. “You always act like you have to solve the universe.”

He nodded, but inside, something trembled.

Later that night, he scrolled through his email, hoping for distraction. Buried in the spam folder was a message flagged “No Sender.”

Subject: FINAL REAL FINAL FINAL.

He opened it.

Nothing inside. Just a single image.

A mirror.

Fogged over.

And behind the fog, his own reflection—but older, tired, and smiling.

As if it had finally figured something out he hadn’t yet.

The timestamp read: One year from now.